Huh? This was a decidedly odd piece of blogging: The claim that somehow the union thug clobbering Crowder was part of a right-wing hoax, based on such “evidence” as the event having been reported by “James O’Keefe’s buddy” Lee Stranahan — because, hey, if anybody at Breitbart thinks it’s actually news, that means it must be phony, right?

Also, the video was edited. Anybody who edits a video is obviously engaged in some kind of evil conspiracy.

What the hell is this silly gibberish? Are these people crazy?

No, they’re engaged in a systematic effort to create confusion and discourage mainstream journalists from reporting on the incident.

“Accuse the accusers!” Re-arrange the narrative of events so that a story that obviously makes the Left look bad is, instead, a story about the Right unjustly trying to make the Left look bad.

This perversion of the narrative makes the teller of the tale (“Crowder works for Fox News! Stranahan works for Breitbart!”) the pre-demonized focus of the story, the villain whose tale can’t be trusted by any mainstream, legitimate journalist. And you can bet that any MSM reporter who does try to report honestly on what happened in Lansing will be brutally excoriated by Media Matters and others on the Left for taking this incident seriously as actual news.

Crowder is being smashed “through a plate glass window,” so to speak. If conservative New Media and citizen-journalists call attention to such an incident, that very fact — the involvement of conservatives, and their interest in the incident as news — will be leveraged by liberals as part of the counter-narrative to discredit and de-legitimize the story.

A witness saw the AFP people untying the ropes on the tent!
(Yes, ignore the videos that show the union thugs destroying the tent. BTW, I’m betting “the witness” is hardly impartial-AKA, union himself or a union sympathizer)

johngalt

Can you blame the union thugs for getting violent, though? I mean, their gravy train is about to get shortened. Their share of the loot about to become a much smaller amount. Look to Greece and what happens when you take away from the entitlement crowd. This is what the liberal/progressives count on whenever someone starts talking about reducing the amount the government hands out. This is what the liberal/progressives count on when responsible people talk about a social security and medicare system that is broken and needs to be fixed.

And that is the mentality of a society that becomes dependent upon the government for everything.

Mully

This entire episode it just plain stupid. Why attack a hot dog vendor or smash a tent. None of these people had anything to do with the law changing. And for Steve Crowder just asking a question got him in trouble with these lemmings. Here is a whole bunch of idiots in mob mentality cheering when the tent goes down. Cheering for what? What did it change for them? If these folks have a gripe do it through the proper channels and ballot box when the time comes and look like educated adults.
This is just madness.

Hard Right

The funny thing is the stooges doing the assaulting really don’t lose anything. The people higher up in the union do. You see, all the RTW change does is keep the unions from forcing non-union members to pay dues to the union. Nothing stops the union from representing only union members in their negotiations/contracts. The claim that RTW allows freeloading is a lie. Thses guys are so brainless tho, they buy everything their bosses tell them.

Petercat

One of the biggest problems with the union mentality is that they think that the phrase “my job” is not a description, it is a claim to ownership.
So they actually believe that anyone who has a negative impact on “their job” is equal to a burglar, and should be treated as such. Physical violence, in their minds, is as acceptable a way of dealing with the problem as it would be in dealing with a mugger or a thief.
You cannot convince a union member that “his” job belongs to the employer, and that the employer has every right to do as he pleases with that job.
(Bees: I am using “he” and “his” for convenience, instead of the clumsy “he or she or it”, which I abbreviate as h’or’sh’it.)
Speaking of horses, Bees, Silver is back and seriously depressed. He knows what’s going to happen over the next four years. Apparently, Silver has more horse sense than most voters. Know any way to cheer up a depressed horse?

Hard Right

Greg

Here’s Steven Crowder’s video of the attack. It has obviously been edited. Clearly Crowder has been trying to provoke pro-union demonstrators to get something “newsworthy” for the people who pay him.

I’m highly skeptical about the claim that Crowder was the one who was threatened with shooting. To me it sounds a lot more like an angry union demonstrator is warning others that he’s seen that one of the America for Prosperity people is armed. This isn’t at all surprising. Right-wing union-busting thugs are known to frequently carry handguns in public places.

retire05

No surprise that you would defend some union thug who, by the way, was caught by a local news reporter doing his beat down of Crowder.

So game on, liberals. Illinois has just had the court rule that concealed carry is legal. Other states are doing the same. So while those union thugs are moaning because the state they have ruined is now going to be a right-to-work state, they are setting themselves up for a major beat down themselves.

If I was Crowder, I would press charges against the IBEW guy who threw the punches, and if the police refused to arrest the IBEW thug, I would hit every damn news show in the nation for weeks, giving the names of the police that refused to do their jobs, along with the name of the prosecuting attorney in Lansing and would publish the guy’s photo on every blog I could find.

Did you idiots learn nothing in Wisconsin?

You want to know what unions bring? Just drive thru Detroit, and let us know what you see.

Richard Wheeler

C’mon Retireos Crowder is working his 15 minutes to the max. with his Fox tour.Hope he actually gets in the ring with the “Union Thug”– raise some money for charity.Good thing.
Cary Thinking of you watching the great live Sandy benefit from MSG. The Stones,The Who,Bruce,McCartney,Stipes, Roger Waters,Bon Jovi. etc. Great show for a Great City.

Mully

retire05

There was more than one video, Greggie, including the one from the local news station. I guess you think that Crowder has the power to make a left wing news station edit their video. Yeah, the every powerful conservatives forced the local news station to make edits so the conservative would look like the victim. Got it.

But then, how do you explain the beatdown of Clint, the Hot Dog Man, who the union goons called “N*gger” and “Uncle Tom” and destoryed his hot dog stand? He was hired to provide hot dogs to the AFP people, but I guess those union goons don’t believe in someone actually doing a job to earn a living if it puts them in the vacinity of anyone who is not willing to jump on the union bandwagon.

So you support the assault on another person, the destruction of private property (the tent), the threat of harm to those inside the falling tent, all for union bosses who are not worried about the members, only their ability to keep their own high dollar salaries. Got it.

If you think those union big wigs are interested in keeping the out of control wages and benefits for their members, and not their own tony salaries, you’re nuts. It’s just like the Hostess Brands workers; their unions promoted the strike and now the only ones with jobs are the union bigwigs. 18,500 union members are now out of work while union management still has theirs.

If you support a person’s right to join a union, why do you not support another person’s right to NOT join a union but still be forced to pay union dues and then force the company to take those dues out of their paycheck? If you want to belong to a union fine, but you should have to send your union dues in, just like your electric bill, and not have the company, city or state, be forced to take it out of your paycheck for the union.

Smorgasbord

18,500 union members are now out of work while union management still has theirs.

If it hasn’t changed, the union workers who lost their jobs still have to pay dues, although they are at a reduced rate. Even if the union doesn’t find work for those members, they still get their dues money from the union member.

The way it used to be, the top union bosses decided which companies the union struck. If the union workers at one company went on strike, it was common practice to have companies that supplied goods, or other companies related to the one being stuck, go on stick too. The union members had no choice. It was in their union contract. Does anyone know if this is still true? Have you union members read ALL of your contract? Would you be willing to go on strike for other union members going on strike with a company 1,000 miles away?

retire05

If you look at the history of the UAW, you will notice something unusual. Their contracts will ALL the Big Three auto makers all come due the same year. So the UAW would rotate which company they would strike against when the contracts come due, rotating them. If the UAW walked on GM in 1990, then in 1994 they would strike against Ford, and in 1998 strike against Chrysler. Why? Because once GM settled on a new contract, Ford and Chrysler ususally offered the same contract, sometimes being just slightly better. The union members who were the last to settle generally got the best contract. Then in four years, the process started all over. I remember back in the ’70’s, GM went out, settled; Ford went out, settled and then it was Chrysler’s turn. The UAW people walked on Chrysler, only to find out that the GM and Ford workers had depleted the union strike fund and they got nothing. They settled with Chrysler in about ten days, and for less than the GM and Ford workers got because there was no union strike benefits available to them.

I also remember back in the late 80’s when the CWA decided to strike against Southwestern Bell. The demands by the union were unreasonable, so SWB said “Go ahead. Strike.” so the CWA walked. After three weeks, and only about $40/wk in strike benefits, the union accepted a contract that was worse than the first one SWB offered because everyone needed to go back to work. By not taking the very first SWB offer, they wound up with a worse contract than they had when they went on strike.

Some unions, I read, take as much as 4.5% of your hourly salary. Think about that; if you make $25/hr., you’re paying the union $2,340 a year in dues.

If someone wants to belong to a union, I have no problem with that. But the union should not be able to force the company, city or state, to take union dues out of someone’s paycheck. Members should be required to pay that money directly to the union. But the unions don’t want that because if the company is only taking say, $45/wk out of your paycheck and you don’t miss it as much when you don’t have to write the check.

another vet

Obama’s brown shirts strike again. I guess they were “taking those sonofabitches out” per the orders given to them earlier. No surprise his supporters here applaud the action. Slowly but surely there will come a point in time where this is going to get very ugly on a much larger scale. We’ll see how much cheering happens then.

ilovebeeswarzone

Petercat
hi,
about SLVER, GIVE HIM APPLE every day, talk to him of love,
give him smile while you look at him in the eyes, caress him, and brush him slowly, ride him as if he is the leader, while you read the FLOPPING ACES COMMENTS AND ANSWER IT.
THEN HE WILL LOVE YOU BACK AND LET YOU KNOW HE BELONG TO YOU,
ALWAYS, LET ME KNOW HIS PROGRESS
BYE

ilovebeeswarzone

another vet
okay the right to work is law, I have a hard time to figure me going to work in a company with other union guys and girls, all day, and be alive to come back home,
how do we do it?
or a company hiring only non union employees, not far from the other company with union employees
at 100 feet away, I see blood yes
on their dinner break
how can this work?
they went half way, they had a chance to ban the unions from MICHIGAN
BUT THEY ARE SCARE OF OBAMA THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIONS,
MORE THAN THE UNIONS ALONE

another vet

@ilovebeeswarzone: According to the left, the only rights are the rights to free abortion, free contraception, and other tax subsidized “rights” that someone else pays for. All other rights, especially those in the Constitution, are privileges because the Constitution is a “living breathing document” that they can change on a whim to advance their agenda.

Smorgasbord

@retire05: #20
I agree with a person’s right to decide whether to join a union or not.

I remember many many, years ago driving American made cars that let the air blow in past the door seals. I also remember the foreign car makers figuring that Americans would pay more for quality, so they built quality cars. Americans bought enough of the quality foreign cars that the American companies petitioned congress to put a $1,000 tariff on each foreign car. All that did was put an extra $1,000 in the federal coffer for each of the foreign cars the Americans kept buying. To paraphrase a saying, “If you build quality into it, people will buy it.” Ford learned that, and as far as I know, has been the ONLY American car manufacturer in the top 10 ratings for many, many years.

When I was a truck driver, sometimes as I was being loaded, I would POLITELY ask the forklift operator if this was an American company. They would say that it is. Then, I would ask them if they wanted Americans to buy their products. They said they did. Then I would say something like, “Look at what kind of forklift you are loading me with.” EVERY TIME, I got the same answer. They ALL said that the foreign made forklifts are easier to use, need less maintenance, and last longer. I quit my POLITE complaint about buying foreign forklifts.

retire05

In 1987, I bought a new blue Chevy half-ton. It was a pretty truck, but I had had it less than a year when, one day, when I took it to a do-it-yourself car wash, the damn paint started pealing off. I had so much peeled paint on my side mirrors you could see anything in them.

I called the dealer and was told there was nothing they could do about the paint. So I called GM in Detroit. Their response? To ask if I parked the truck in the sun. I said “Mister, I live in Texas. Do you have another stupid question?” I was told, initially, there was nothing they could do about the paint that peeled off a truck a year old. I called back, explained my problem, and advised the GM rep of my solution. I told him “There is a bill board right next to the dealer where I bought this truck. I am going to buy space on that billboard with a big arrow pointing directly to my truck parked under it with “This is what happens when you buy a Chevy truck” on it.

A week later my truck was at the dealers being painted. But the truck kept breaking down on me so within two years I sold it. I now have a ’95 F-250 diesel with 300,000 miles on it. And I will never buy another GM product, ever.

Chevy built crap back then, and they are not much better now. Recently, a list of the 10 best cars came out. Two Fords were listed. Not one Chevy and not one Chrysler.

Smorgasbord

Chevy built crap back then, and they are not much better now. Recently, a list of the 10 best cars came out. Two Fords were listed. Not one Chevy and not one Chrysler.

When I found out that an ATV I bought wouldn’t fit in the trunk of my Toyota Camry, I HAD to by a pickup to haul it. I wanted a pickup all of my life, but never NEEDED one. I did then. I had decided on either a Toyota or Ford. As you mentioned, Ford has been on the top 10 list different times, and they didn’t take any bailout money. Toyota’s are ALWAYS rated almost the highest rating possible, and I had NO problems with my Toyota car, so how do I decide which one to get. It was easy. The 2012s were out, and I was looking at the 2011s, since they are still brand new pickups. There weren’t any 2011 Toyotas left, so it was the Ford F-150 I got, and I don’t regret it. After I got it, I noticed that I was in Ford pickup country. You know how you notice other vehicles that look like the one you bought, but you never noticed them before?

I recommend that everybody subscribe to Consumer Reports magazine. They don’t take any advertising, so they can be impartial in the testing and evaluating. Each year they print the repair history of vehicles people sent in replies to the surveys. The Ford F-150 had a good rating.

Mr. Irons

Smorg, they’ve also got a nice line up of radio and online reviews of top products and recall warnings. It’s been helpful for me of late in replacing certain household items for best bang for the buck and I’m currently on the threshold of needing to replace my 2000 model Grand Prix (replacement parts are getting shoddy and expensive T_T ).

Smorgasbord

@Mr. Irons: #29
You mentioning recalls reminded me of recalls.gov where you sign up for emails of recalled products. There are a lot of them. I get concerned when I read of items injuring or killing kids, since I have grandkids. That is something else I suggest everyone should sign up for. Your will be amazed how much, and what stuff is being recalled.

another vet

another vet

Recently, a list of the 10 best cars came out. Two Fords were listed. Not one Chevy and not one Chrysler.

There is probably a moral to that story.

I will never buy a GM product either. I’ve owned Ford Rangers since 1985. Now that they are no longer selling them in the U.S., I’ll probably have to switch to Nissan or something unless Ford comes out with something comparable.